A conventional glove for baseball or softball (hereinafter simply as "glove") is formed as follows. First, ball receiving leather 16 having five approximately finger-shaped portions as shown in FIG. 7C, and back leather 15 having a plurality of leather parts sewed together to form five finger stalls as shown in FIG. 7A are prepared. Their peripheries are sewed except for the part to insert a hand such that both grain sides form the inside. Then, it is turned inside out so that the grain sides come outside and the front member is thus formed.
Then, the periphery of palm leather 18 as shown in FIG. 7D having a smaller size than the front member and five approximately finger-shaped portions and rear leather 17 as shown in FIG. 7B having a plurality of leather parts sewed to form five finger stalls are sewed together except for the part to insert a hand such that also both grain sides form the inside. This forms the back member.
At various necessary points of the front member, a padding of felt and other shock absorbers are inserted, wax is applied, or the member is impregnated with oil. Then, the back member is inserted into the front member, and then the hand inserting portions of the front and back members are combined with a leather lace 75 as shown in FIG. 6.
Then, a separately formed web portion (ball receiving portion) 19 is attached between the thumb stall and the index finger stall also with leather laces 75, and the baseball glove is completed.
FIG. 8 is a cross sectional view of the middle finger stall. As shown in FIG. 8, the back member formed of palm leather 18 and rear leather 17 is inserted into the front member formed of ball receiving leather 16 and back leather 15. A finger padding 20 is sewed to palm leather 18.
As described above, it requires a lot of work to manufacture the conventional glove.
In particular, the operation of turning inside out ball receiving leather 16 and back leather 15 having their peripheries sewed together excluding the hand inserting portion such that the grain sides come outside is not only cumbersome and requires force but also encounters the following problem.
More specifically, by simply turning inside out ball receiving leather 16 and back leather 15 having their peripheries sewed together, the thread is exposed, which spoils the appearance of the product. Furthermore, the tip end of the glove could contact with the ground when the user catches a grounder, so that the thread touches the ground as well and could be cut.
Therefore, a band type leather lace 76 is held and sewed between ball receiving leather 16 and back leather 15 or between other leather parts (see FIGS. 6 and 8). Thus, if ball receiving leather 16 and back leather 15 are sewed and then turned inside out, the thread would hardly come out. As a result, the appearance is improved, and since the thread does not directly touch the ground, it would not be cut.
However, ball receiving leather 16 and back leather 15 must be sewed together while holding thin, band shaped leather lace 76 therebetween, which requires a lot of work as well as skill.
Furthermore, when ball receiving leather 16 and back leather 15 are turned inside out, deformation (expansion) of leather at respective inter-finger parts 77 is maximized, and therefore significant force is imposed on these parts.
The vicinity of inter-finger parts 77 is positioned close to the center of the glove and is frequently hit with a ball. As a result, the thread at the part is liable to be cut or the leather at the part is likely to be damaged and tear by repeatedly catching a ball.
Furthermore, the glove is mainly formed of four leather parts, i.e., ball receiving leather 16, back leather 15, palm leather 18 and rear leather 17 as shown in FIGS. 7A to 7D. A padding of felt for example and a shock absorber of other material are inserted within these leather parts. Since a web part is also attached to them, the glove as a whole would be significantly heavy.
If the glove has the above structure, it is difficult to reduce the amount of leather to reduce the weight. Therefore, there is no way other than to reduce the amount of the padding of felt or the like or the shock absorber to be inserted in order to reduce the weight of the glove. When the reduction of impact is considered, however, the shock absorber cannot be reduced very much.
Furthermore, in the process of joining the hand inserting portions of the front member and the back member using leather lace 75, the lace must be passed through a number of times, which requires significant force and a very cumbersome operation.
Therefore, the inventors have made the invention as disclosed by Japanese Patent Laying-Open No. 10-165558 in order to solve the above-described disadvantage associated with the conventional glove.
This invention however still has the following problem. In the disclosure of this invention, the back leather is cut to be slightly larger than the ball receiving leather, but about how much the back leather should be larger than the ball receiving leather is not clearly stated. As a result, at the time of manufacturing such a glove as disclosed by the document, the size of each part should be set by the eye.
However, when the inventors actually fabricated such gloves as they set the sizes of the back leather and front leather by the eye, a desired arc shape was obtained on the ball receiving side of the gloves in some cases and was not in other cases.
Thus, the inventors studied for the reason into detail, and learned that slight difference in the sizes of the back leather and front leather could affect the shape of the glove on the ball receiving side. When a desired arc shape is not obtained, not only the performance of the glove but also the yield could be lowered, and therefore it is very important to find out the relation between the sizes of the back leather and the ball receiving leather in the manufacture of gloves.
In addition, the glove according to the above invention, no shock absorber is employed excluding the part from the thumb portion to the little finger portion through the vicinity of the periphery of the palm portion (the bank portion). Therefore, the impact at the time of catching a ball is directly transmitted to the fingers, and the fingers are sometimes hurt during repetition of ball catching exercise for hours.
Moreover, the shock absorber from the thumb portion via the vicinity of the periphery of the palm portion to the little finger portion is held between notches formed at the ball receiving leather. The process of providing the notches or cutting the leather to cover the shock absorber into a form corresponding to the notches involves a relatively cumbersome operation.